The Unredeemed Captive Analysis

In The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America, John Demos worked to write a narrative that illustrates the contact and encounter between the immensely different human groups such as the Indians, the French, and the British within the colonial era, focusing on Indian captivity and one family story (XII). Demos concentrated on the contact of racial and cultural problems by emphasizing Reverend John Williams and his family’s life in captivity and outside captivity from, 1703 to 1778. He slowly, accurately, and occasionally confusing, moves the audience through the event, their travels, their years in captivity, the public response, the government intervention, and the fateful return of all of his children, except Eunice. In the narrative, Demos identifies two key themes: identity and multicultural conflict. The themes are not directly mentioned in the preface but as the audience travels through the narrative the underlying messages become apparent. Readers are able to generate ideas throughout the narrative on whether the theme of identity that is presented in the narrative is fluid, predetermined, or fixed. In the early chapters of …show more content…
One such example of a letter was when Demos cited Eleazer Williams’s response to her brother Stephen by providing an excerpt of her letter (180). In the end when demos is answering his question, “how does the story end,” he provides readers with an actual personal recording and then a translation of the recording emphasizing his use of primary documents to validate his evidence that answered his thesis (237). The value of using the letters, quotes, personal recording, and government documents is that these primary documents validate his research and his argument because they portray how those who lived through the event felt and reacted to

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